Commentary on pro-family issues in the media, politics and in the public square.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Morality and sexual liberation - which ultimately wins?

Here's a great commentary by Eric Metaxes from BreakPoint entitled, "Microbiology and Morality - Limits to our Sexual Freedom?"

He points out man's attempts to overcome the limits on sexual expression eventually come up short. A case in point is gonorrhea.

In the second century, the Roman physician Galen named a common
ailment whose symptoms included a burning sensation in the urinary tract
and (forgive me) the release of pus. He combined the Greek word for
“seed,” gonos, and “flow,” rhoia.

That’s how the word “gonorrhea” entered the Western lexicon. And now you know.

For eighteen centuries, the disease was a constant reminder of the
dangers of promiscuity. The 18-century British writer James Boswell,
Samuel Johnson’s biographer, called it a “memorandum of vice” before
dying himself from what are believed to be complications of the illness.
At the turn of the 20th century, the New York City medical
examiner estimated that 80 percent of the men in the city had contracted
the illness at least once in their lives.

But then came antibiotics, and we thought we could put Boswell’s memorandum in our ‘deleted’ file.
The problem is the development of a strain of gonorrhea resistant to antibodies.

But not so fast. A recent article in the New Yorker
magazine describes a new strain of gonorrhea that is resistant to the
only class of drugs that can “reliably treat” the disease.

Since its discovery in 2009, this strain has spread to every country
in Europe, and much of east Asia. While it hasn’t been discovered yet in
the United States, “resistant gonorrhea is likely to arrive and spread
long before physicians and the C.D.C. recognize it.” By then, of course,
it will be too late: “some public-health officials predict that in five
to eight years this superbug will be widespread.”

Thus, in the magazine’s words, “Whatever freedoms were won during the
sexual revolution, bacterial evolution promises soon to constrain.”

That’s an interesting way to put it: a mixture of surprise and regret at the idea
that human freedom can be limited by nature; or the idea that somehow,
as Chuck Colson used to say, that just as there are physical laws of the
universe, so there are universal moral laws. We ignore either at our
own peril.

It’s a lesson you think people would have learned by now. Thirty
years ago, the HIV virus reminded us that microbiology is callously
indifferent to changes in human ideas about freedom and morality.

While, thankfully, new therapies mean that testing positive for HIV
is no longer a death sentence—at least for those who can afford the
drugs—we are still nowhere near a vaccine, much less a cure.

We’re even farther behind the curve when it comes to this new strain of gonorrhea. According to the New Yorker, the “primary hope for stemming the expected epidemic . . . lies in persuading people to alter their behavior.”

And by “altering their behavior,” they don’t mean “be chaste.” What
they really mean is “practicing safe sex.” The Sexual Revolution may
have lost the war against micro-organisms, but it’s still prevailing
among public health officials.

Unfortunately, the sexual revolution and its advocates seem immune to reason.

These are the same people who, rightly, tell us to eat less, exercise
more, quit smoking, etc. In other words, in the name of public health
they won’t hesitate to ask for radical changes in behavior to combat
obesity or hypertension. (Just try finding a super-size soda here in New
York City!)

But when it comes to sexual behavior, they somehow believe that asking for a measure of self-control is asking a bit too much.

And as long as we think that way, Boswell’s memorandum will occupy a permanent place in our inbox.

It seems as if the pain resulting from sexual revolution - emotional scars and hurts, disease and even death in some instances - don't outweigh the perceived pleasures. At least for now or, sadly, for some people until it's too late. And of course each new generation seems to think they need to learn the lessons for themselves, the hard way.